


A Birth-Day Gift

by everlastingwonder



Category: Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: Birthday, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 07:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18006110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everlastingwonder/pseuds/everlastingwonder
Summary: An unsuspecting innkeeper gets a story and a gift.





	A Birth-Day Gift

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written for an assignment in English class where we had to write an epilogue or extra chapter for Frankenstein, emulating the writing style of the original. Sorry if it's a little rough; I haven't done much editing since the original assignment.

There is one thing that I know for certain: when I lay on my deathbed many years hence, with the last puffs of vapour fleeing my lungs and the final remnants of lucidity escaping my brain; even then shall I remember the nineteenth of November, eighteen seventy-three; for that was the night that I encountered  _ him _ .

No other scene could at once be so clear in my memory, and yet leave me with such doubt as to whether it truly occurred or was simply a terrible fever-dream. Yet I am forced to discount the latter prospect, for I cannot bring myself to imagine that my own mind, even in the deepest throes of madness, could conceive of any specter half as fantastic as the demon I met that night.

I was idly cleaning tables in my humble inn, as I so often do in the midafternoon hours when business is slow. I recall even now that I was using a rag, pale green in color, torn from a shirt that my son of four years old had outgrown; that is how indelibly that night is burnt into my memory! But I digress; my recollection of cleaning implements is of little importance here — for the rag in question leaves our story upon falling from my hand and being utterly forgotten as I stared, dumbfounded, at the unholy creature that had just burst through the door of my establishment.

His skin was a pallid, sickly yellow; his hair, jet-black, matted and unkempt; his eyes watery and weak. Observing such a rough and disheveled demeanour, I at first took him for a drunkard; yet this early presumption was banished when he opened his mouth; for his teeth were of a pure white to match the snows of the Arctic and his speech was without slur or hesitation.

As I was alone in the common room, the customers having yet to return for supper, he immediately turned to me — yet, looking back, this is likely for the best; I shudder to think how the sight of him might have affected my wife, or worse, my infant son! His gaze fixed upon me and he demanded of me the date, a request which I hastily obliged: "To-day is November the nineteenth, in the year of our lord eighteen seventy-three — a Wednesday, if that matters to you." I knew not for what purpose the man — though I question whether the term properly applies to a being such as that one — desired this information, but I would not in twenty lifetimes have guessed what his response would be. He fell upon the wooden floor in paroxysms of hysterical laughter. At this point I of course thought him a madman, and so I retrieved my rag and went back to my labour, ignoring him as best I could. His fit soon died out, however, and he apologized for his strange reaction.

"My intent was never to offend or mock you, sir! Your answer merely took me by surprise, for although to-day is no doubt as mundane as any other to you, it is a rather exceptional occasion for me, as it happens to be my birth-day!"

I decided then that he seemed amiable enough; and when one is the proprietor of an inn and ale-house, a customer is a customer, no matter how uncanny his appearance or how strange his behaviour. "My sincerest congratulations, sir! This seems to me as good a reason as any for a respite from my work; might I offer you a drink?" I dismissed his protests of having little money to spare, as it was his birth-day, and during slow hours such as those a cup of ale was easily worth a story or two and a quarter hour's conversation. I had by that point judged that he was a well-travelled individual, though I knew not then just how well-travelled!

As I busied myself fetching two mugs of ale, I inquired as to the exact occasion we were celebrating. He hesitated a moment before responding, but when he did, I found myself staring incredulously at this stranger for the second time in our brief exchange. "Why, that is precisely the reason for my laughter earlier, for to-day marks none other than the one hundredth anniversary of my creation!"

I laughed nervously, once again entertaining the possibility that he was mad, or perhaps simply joking; but something in his tone told me that this was no mere jest. He truly believed that he had been born one century ago that day, despite the clear absurdity of such a thing. "Far be it from me to cast doubt on your word, but surely you cannot be one hundred years old! Even if it were possible for a human to live to such an age, you look not a day over thirty!" This much was true; his skin was devoid of wrinkles, despite its sickly yellow shade, and his youth was evident in his bearing and speech.

"I will admit that it sounds utterly absurd to one unaware of my peculiar origin. For I am no human, however much I may look like one. Instead, I am the creation of one M. Frankenstein: a congress of flesh, bone, and organs given life by his hand. You look upon the same visage now as my creator did when he first awakened me. I do not age or wither; mine is the bitter burden of time. My body belies the years I have suffered, and likewise does my face conceal the memories of acts that I committed, long ago, in fits of passion and spite. I cannot bring myself to take my own life, and I now sorely doubt that any mortal hand might seize it, for I am endowed with physical strength and prowess far beyond those of a human. This life, therefore, is my prison; the weight of my regret is one that I shall bear for all eternity."

I had heard of M. Frankenstein in passing: a brilliant and promising scholar who had been seized by madness and wandered off into the Arctic wastes claiming he was looking for one of his experiments. Despite having shown great promise early in his career, this tragic affliction had deprived him of the recognition he deserved and instead confined him to a mere footnote in history. Could this, then, be the experiment he had sought?

The creature must have discerned in my expression a glimmer of recognition, for he exclaimed, "Ah! I see you are familiar with the cautionary tale of my creator! I shall lay to rest, then, your curiosity on the matter: yes, I am M. Frankenstein's infamous 'lost experiment'. You have no doubt deduced by this point in my tale that I was the cause of his madness; indeed, the mere sight of me on the night of my creation sent him into a nervous fit. In the years that followed, he developed an obsession with me — it was, I think, the grotesque proportions of my form which principally occupied his mind — and this obsession was the nidus of that same tragic affliction which ultimately led him to his death while pursuing me across the Arctic tundra.

"I must admit, however, that I did much in that time to exacerbate his condition; indeed, I was a blight on that poor man's life. On the occasion of our first proper encounter, I demanded that he create another of my kind — a woman, possessing the same unholy visage as myself, as I was convinced that only a creature of similar construction could ever feel affection for one such as I. He obliged, and I left him to his work, for a time; but when his second opus was nearly finished, he was again seized by madness, and possessed to destroy her instead of giving her life! I was livid, and resolved to drive the man to ruin. In my ardour, I claimed first the life of his closest friend, and later — on his very wedding-night! — that of his beloved bride. It was this that broke him; he pursued me in my flight northward, and I am certain you know full well the result of that pursuit. I regret my actions — the wanton murder of innocent beings by my own foul hand — but not their effect on Frankenstein himself, for in destroying the body of my bride-to-be, he likewise quenched the spark that I had seized upon as my sole opportunity for any sort of respite from the misery that even then overshadowed my very existence. For this — the ultimate arrogance of striving for another's affection after willfully depriving me of the same! — I would visit upon him that fury a thousand times over.

"I have spent the time since my maker's death in solitude, for no village will tolerate my presence. I have caught rabbits and pheasants for sustenance, and built myself a modest shelter in which to sleep. Since then, I have not glimpsed another thinking being, with but four exceptions. Four times I broke my solitude and journeyed south, under cover of night, until I encountered a house of satisfactory size — on one joyous occasion, I even happened upon a school — from which I pilfered as many books as I could carry back with me. I took some works of fiction, so that I might have some simple amusement during my exile, and others on language and history, so that I might educate myself on such topics; but by far the most precious to me were those rare volumes that offered treatises upon the various sciences. Many days I spent, numb to the pains of hunger or thirst, engrossed in tomes on medicine and anatomy; but the truly fruitful days were those when I found within myself the fortitude to study the notebooks that I had recovered from my creator's body. After his death, I had doubled back and located his cadaver, though the reason for this action eludes even myself — perhaps to pay respects, or perhaps to gloat over his demise. Standing over him, I noticed a cache of notebooks in his pocket, and I knew with a cold certainty that these were his laboratory notes — the same ones, no doubt, that had been used to create my own body and endow it with its spark of ungodly creation. I desired with every fibre of my being to cast them into flame and watch them blacken and crumble, yet something held me back. These notebooks — vile and ruinous as they were — also held the last dying glimmer of hope beyond hope that I could, someday, end my solitude. Thus did I commence an undertaking of such grand scope that no being but I could possibly have completed it, and even my own success was far from assured. Using these notes, together with the aforementioned books and careful examination of the construction of my own form, I would do that which M. Frankenstein had refused to do for me: I would create my own bride and imbue her with life.

"I mentioned earlier my journeys to retrieve books; tonight is my fifth such endeavour. I know not what possessed me to break from my ventures and enter this inn. Perhaps it was fate — some knowledge, deep in my brain, that this date was an auspicious one — for it is indeed auspicious, beyond simply marking my hundredth year upon this Earth. I am close to a breakthrough; I need but a few more books, and my research will be complete. I then have only to put what I have learned into practice, and on that day I shall discover whether I am truly able to attain some measure of happiness, or if all my efforts have been for naught.

"Many thanks for bearing witness to my ramblings; I shall leave you to your labour now, as you are doubtless tired of my voice. Allow me to show you my gratitude; I understand it is customary to celebrate one's birth-day with gifts, and this seems as good a gift as any other." So saying, he pulled from his pocket a large gold coin of considerable worth — to this day I remain unsure whether he was ignorant of its value or simply making some sort of bizarre boast or jest — and placed it upon the table. "It is not much, but it is all that I have, and soon enough I shall have no use for money, one way or another." Before I could respond, he downed his mug in a single gulp, leapt from his seat, and fled through the door, leaving me alone once more as he loped off into the inky abyss of night.


End file.
